IVAR INGIMARSSON admits Iceland showed England too much respect during their 6-1 hammering at the hands of Sven-Goran Eriksson's men.

Reading's central defender was powerless to halt the attacking might of England as they were hammered by goals from Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney (2), Darius Vassell (2) and Wayne Bridge at the City of Manchester Stadium on Saturday.

However, Ingimarsson, whose flick-on set up Heidar Helguson's consolation header before the break, revealed that he and his team-mates were urged to refrain from flying into tackles in case they injured any of England's stars ahead of Euro 2004.

The request came from the Football Association and was agreed by the Icelandic management and FA.

And Ingimarsson told the Evening Post: "I am very disappointed about the game because of the scoreline. But having said that we knew it was going to be hard, especially after England's result (1-1) against Japan.

"We expected them to be much stronger and that was the case, but I feel we showed them far too much respect. Our manager said in our preparation not to go into 50/50 tackles and that was in our minds.

"I'm not making any excuses or saying that the result would have been different as England were much the better team on the day, but losing that aggression takes away a lot of our game as we usually rely on team spirit and fight for everything.

"But we showed them too much respect."

England's demolition of Iceland was the best possible send-off before their Euro 2004 campaign begins on Sunday against reigning European champions France.

Ingimarsson believes Eriksson's side has a chance of glory in Portugal but fancies the quality of the French side to retain the trophy they won four years ago.

He added: "England can win it, but they won't start as favourites. I expect the France team to do well. Having said that if England can get a result against them in the first game then that will give them a lot of confidence and who knows what could happen?"